1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fungus having an anticancer activity which is separated from a soil sample, to compounds having an inhibitory activity on the proliferation and metastasis of cancer cells which are produced from the said fungus, to anticancer compositions comprising the said compounds as active ingredients, and methods for the separation of the said compounds.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cancer is a critical disease that is recording 1st mortality in modern society. Even after all the treatment methods developed so far, a revolutionary treatment method for cancer is still in request. In the field of modern medicine, cancer treatment method is exemplified by surgical operation, biotherapy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy using anticancer agents. Chemotherapy is to treat metastatic cancer by suppressing cancer cell proliferation by administering anticancer agents via oral administration or injection, which has been used as a standard therapy for the treatment of metastatic cancer. Chemotherapy cannot treat metastatic cancer completely, but still plays an important role in extending patient's life with relieving cancer symptoms.
Among the many anticancer agents developed from natural products, taxol has been most widely used for the treatment of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Those chemotherapeutic agents have problems of side effects and cancer chemoresistance in the increase. Despite studies on cancer have been actively going on, the development of a novel anticancer agent with less side effects and overcoming resistance problem is still difficult because of diversity and different development mechanisms of cancer.
Study on the screening and use of natural substance is focused on investigating biosynthesis capability of organisms, which has been targeting largely plants and microorganisms up to date. In particular, microorganisms have been fascinating targets for searching physiological active substances because of diversity in species, capability of producing interesting physiological active substances, short generation time, availability for mass production, and industrial usability. Many physiological active substances screened from microorganisms are separated from Actinomycetes, fungi, and bacteria. 25% out of total physiological active substances separated from microorganisms are originated from fungi, suggesting that fungi are industrially or medically important microorganisms producing physiological active substances including anticancer materials.
Thus, the present inventors searched a substance having an excellent anticancer activity from metabolites of soil microorganisms. In the midst, the inventors separated a fungus strain Fusarium sp. FN080326 producing an anticancer material having an excellent anticancer activity from a soil sample, from which the inventors separated and purified novel fusarisetin compounds. The present inventors completed this invention at last by confirming that the said fusarisetin compounds had an inhibitory activity on the proliferation and metastasis of cancer cells such as breast cancer cells, liver cancer cells or myeloid-leukemic cells.